


Over

by MagicMage



Series: Joshua Shepard [7]
Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Break Up, M/M, Making Up, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, non-canon Shepard
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-10
Updated: 2015-05-22
Packaged: 2018-02-28 22:00:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2748671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MagicMage/pseuds/MagicMage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has it, that breaking point. </p><p>Joshua Shepard and Kaidan Alenko had been terrible at communication since day one, but when they haven't been communicating at all for several months, and Joshua starts feeling some serious abandonment, he starts an argument which leads to more non-communicating. </p><p>What does he do when he can't handle the silence any more? He does what Commander Shepard does best.</p><p>(This story is currently on hold)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Patience Over

**Author's Note:**

> This is a sequel type thing to Finding Peace, in which stuff goes down. Super angst, have fun!

Joshua hadn’t seen Kaidan in weeks. Partially because he had been on a Spectre mission, followed by a special assignment from the Alliance, and then another Spectre mission, and partially because he had started an argument with Kaidan before he went on the first Spectre mission. He was certain that Kaidan had only taken the other two assignments because he was still upset with him, still angry.

Weeks were turning into months. If he actually counted it had been almost two months, but he didn’t want to count.

Kaidan was usually home for about a week between missions, but he’d gone and accepted another mission the day he came home. ‘The straw that broke the camel’s back’ as they said. An old saying, but was it ever true.

The first words out of his mouth, instead of asking him calmly why he was leaving again so soon, had been, “Oh, well, _you’re_ in a pretty big hurry to leave me again.”

It had gone downhill from there. Lots of fun accusations thrown around, ending with Joshua locking himself in the office and changing the lock codes so that Kaidan couldn’t get in without breaking in. When he’d awoken the next morning, his neck, back, and hips stiff from sleeping in the office chair, Kaidan had left without so much as a note.

Up until this point he’d been pretty sure that Kaidan was coming home. He’d sent a few cursory two sentence or less updates that told him where he was _sort of_ and when he’d taken the other missions. Joshua had tried to reply to them, but there had been no replies, not even when Joshua had broken down and sent him a message that said, “You know I love you right?” two weeks prior.

Now he wasn’t so sure.

Now he wondered what the hell he’d been thinking. He’d been keeping his suffering over Kaidan leaving him frequently, for longer amounts of time, completely to himself for two years. Why now? Apparently he’d just felt like the precursor to his 32nd birthday should be to run Kaidan out of the house.

He didn’t even want to be in the house anymore. He hadn’t slept in weeks, neither sleeping on the bed, the couch, or in his office chair helped. How many times had he woken up, sometimes completely unsure what had woken him up, sweating, gasping for air, sometimes crying. Some nights he just stayed awake after that, huddled in the darkness. Some nights he broke into his ‘just in case’ sleeping pills and drugged himself to sleep until noon the next day.

Last night he’d dreamt of Horizon again.

Not even the sleeping pills had been able to put him into sleep after that, leaving him exhausted, sluggish, and miserable into the next day.

He had the Normandy SR-2 model which Kaidan had given him on his desk in his office, and was doing absolutely nothing except sitting in his chair and feeling sorry for himself. He looked at his omnitool, trying desperately not to give in again. He knew he wasn’t the only one in the wrong in this case. He’d reacted badly, definitely, started the argument in the wrong way, absolutely, but he wasn’t _wrong_.

Besides the fact that he’d started keeping track of the frequency and length of Kaidan’s trips over the past few months and noticed the climb in both, Kaidan had mentioned several times over the last few years how he always looked tired when he returned from work, and Kaidan had decided to ignore it.

 _No_ , he hadn’t said anything about it to Kaidan, but how could he? Kaidan _liked_ working, Kaidan _loved_ being a Spectre. He was better for the Spectre’s than _he’d_ ever been, and he was good at it. He didn’t break the rules, he got the job done. And his students at the Alliance loved him. He couldn’t ask him to choose between them for him, and he couldn’t ask him to just work with the Alliance like he wanted. At least, _at least,_ the Alliance didn’t make him leave for weeks at a time, even if _his_ relationship with them wasn’t that great, they liked Kaidan.

He reached for his omnitool.

 _‘Kaidan,_ please _, come home.’_ He wrote, and then sent it before he could stop himself.

He couldn’t take it anymore. Having Kaidan away from him was like slowly being drained of his life. More like, he had no reason to bother living if Kaidan wasn’t there. Kaidan gave him purpose. What purpose did he have otherwise? An old washed up soldier who couldn’t even do his part in the rebuilding because he was too broken. He may as well be one-hundred-fifty and in a retirement home until he was too old to deal with and he spent his days starring slack jawed out the window.

He picked up the Normandy SR-2 and looked at it closely, turning it over in his hands a few times. It was a bit more beaten up than his other models, he’d handled it more often. Kaidan had an odd habit of handing it to him when he was nervous, or upset, so it was a bit worn. Still in one piece.

His omnitool beeped and he put down the SR-2 to check his message.

 _‘I’m busy Joshua,_ later _.’_ Was the reply.

His lip twitched. “Yeah, I’m busy too,” he muttered. “I mean, sitting here decomposing because I’m completely _fucking useless_ and my lover doesn’t even want to come home to me.” If he even had a lover anymore.

He stood up and picked up the Normandy, intent on putting it back on the shelf so that he could go for a run or something. A piece of the wing fell off.

He stared at it, feeling his stomach twist uncomfortably and his chest _ached_. He clenched his teeth, dropping the model and watching as several more pieces fell off of it, and then stepped over the mess and out of his office.

He was so _done_.

-o-

At least he was still able to play his “I was once the hero of the galaxy card” to get himself quick passage from Earth. It wasn’t really until he was on the passenger ship, sitting in his ‘all inclusive VIP cabin’, that he realised that booking passage to the Citadel had probably been a bit rash.

There was glue in his office after all.

But he was done, exhausted, he wanted something different. He didn’t want to feel like some kept woman who never saw her husband because he was too busy for her. He wasn’t as irrational as to go thinking that Kaidan may be cheating, he was too rule abiding, too good of a person for that. But the abandonment? That was definitely there. At this point if someone came up to him and told him that Kaidan loved his job more than he loved him he would believe it, more over he’d agree.

He’d considered just going somewhere else for a while, but he didn’t really like Earth. So somewhere else ended up being in a different star system, so shoot him.

He lay on his back in the cabin. A nighttime trip. “Go to sleep and wake up in the wonder that is the Citadel!” Which would be fantastic, if he could sleep. Sleep would be nice.

He hadn’t bothered to send Kaidan a response to his message, and Kaidan hadn’t sent him another message either. _Later_ was not going to come. How could Kaidan be mad at him for almost two months? He hadn’t said anything particularly mean to Kaidan, other than saying that Kaidan didn’t want to come home because he was tired of how useless he was.

Joshua sighed and rolled over onto his side, pulling out his omnitool and sending a message to Liara.

_‘Is there anyone on the Citadel?’_

_‘There are lots of people on the Citadel, Joshua.’_

_‘Is there anyone_ that I know _on the Citadel?’_

_‘There are lots of people that you know on the Citadel as well Joshua.’_

He glared at the message and slammed his omnitool down on the bed. He sat up and shuffled to the end of the bed, letting his legs hang off the end. If she wasn’t going to be helpful he didn’t need her. It didn’t matter if no one was on the Citadel, he’d just hang around for a while. Maybe he’d play around in the slums, in the places that the Council hadn’t been able to afford to rebuild yet.

His omnitool beeped again, he reached for it.

_‘Joshua don’t you think you should return to Earth?’_

Joshua swallowed thickly at the message, shifting back on the bed again. Of course she knew. She knew everything. If he asked what Garrus had had to eat for the past month she’d probably have a list somewhere. Someone would have reported to her when his Interstellar Passport had been scanned.

_‘No. I don’t.’_

_‘What happened?’_

_‘Leave it Liara.’_

For a moment there was no reply, and then his omnitool started beeping with an incoming call. Joshua sighed and picked up.

“Didn’t I say to leave it?” he asked miserably.

Liara’s face appeared in the holographic display on his omnitool, she looked tired, but concerned. “Joshua, I know that Kaidan’s been away for a few months…”

“Did you also know that we fought? Have you been monitoring our communications? Did you see how I asked him to come home and he told me he was _too busy?_ ” He frowned at her through the screen, feeling his frustration at the situation bubbling over.

“Kaidan is not on the Citadel right now Joshua.”

“I don’t care! I broke the one damn thing from when our relationship was actually working. The galaxy may as well be telling me…be telling…” He shook his head roughly. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Drop it.”

Liara sighed, shaking her head slightly and then looking back at him. “You have not been sleeping. I can tell, you always get irrational when you have a lack of sleep.”

“So does everyone else, _doctor_ ,” he snapped, then saw her brow raise slightly and immediately felt bad. “Sorry…” He looked down at his lap.

“That is what I meant,” Liara replied kindly. “What broke?”

“The Normandy…” Joshua sniffed and shook his head again. Nope. He wasn’t going to start bawling in front of someone who had once looked up to him like an older brother.

“One of your models?”

He nodded, dropping his head forward to hide his face because he could feel it getting red. Liara sighed softly.

“I would tell you that I could get you the actual Normandy if you really wanted it…”

“Doesn’t matter,” Joshua muttered. Even though the idea of actually having the Normandy was an interesting one.

“I know.” There was a long pause, in which Joshua took several deep breaths and Liara sighed again. Then she said, “If you need sleep, I have operatives on that ship who can deliver you a mild sedative which will work until morning.”

“I…” He wanted to refuse, tell Liara he was fine on his own, but he knew that she knew he wasn’t fine. It was obvious now. He didn’t know what to do. He looked up at her. Sleep would be so welcoming right now, just a few hours, maybe he’d feel like a person again instead of a poor excuse for existence. “Yeah…okay.”

“I’ll have someone bring it to your room in the next few minutes. Get some sleep Joshua…I can also arrange for lodgings for you on the Citadel until you feel fit to go home.”

“Liara…” Was it even home anymore?

“Yes?”

“I don’t know what to say…”

“You have helped me out many times before Joshua, this is just returning the favour. Just a little bit. Sleep well,” Liara explained softly.

“Thank you…” Joshua replied, having no idea where Liara was or whether she’d be going to bed.

The communication cut out, and true to her words a deck hand showed up a few minutes later with a glass of what appeared to be water. He drank it, and sure enough he was completely out within a few minutes.

He woke up the next morning to the sound of the drive core powering down. It was comforting, hearing that sound again, hearing the sounds of a ship alive as space moved around it. At the same time he felt this unshakable need to be _doing_ something. He should have a datapad in hand, be making plans, making sure his crew was all in one piece.

But it wasn’t his ship.

He got up, changed into clean clothes, threw his dirty ones into his duffel bag and slung the bag over his shoulder. The trip offered a ‘free breakfast’ (which was totally _not_ just added into regular passengers’ tickets), but he wasn’t hungry…he hadn’t felt truly hungry in a while. So instead he went on his own personal tour of the ship.

The crew, mostly human with some asari, each greeted him rather enthusiastically as he walked past. One even tried to doff a salute, but was so nervous that he brought his fist to his forehead instead. Joshua had replied with a proper salute and a kind smile, even as the mortified man rushed off down the hallway.

He wasn’t Commander Shepard anymore. He’d successfully isolated himself enough over the last few years that he’d had to shake minimal hands, make minimal encouraging speeches, see minimal eyes wide with surprise, and hear minimal gasps of delight. He didn’t like it, people seeing him and thinking he was great.

But sometimes they _didn’t_ think he was great. He’d had several people come up to him and give him a hard time over Cerberus, or tell him that they thought everything he’d done had been fabricated somehow. Someone had once tried to tell him that the way his shadow was situated in a picture of him on the Citadel proved he’d never been there. Those were worse. It was like having his worst fears confirmed, it proved that people hated him no matter how hard he tried, and it made his suffering feel invalidated. How could he have PTSD (Dr. Shaek’s words not his) if he’d never done any of those things?

He really just wanted to be left alone.

“C-Commander Shepard!” he heard a voice call from behind him.

As he turned around he almost said ‘nope’, but then he saw he’d been called by a young boy no older than ten years old. “Yes? What can I do for you?” he asked, ignoring the slight tremor in his hands and squaring his stance properly.

The young boy approached him with wide eyes and a reverent look on his face. He couldn’t have been more than three years old when the war first started with Eden Prime.

“We’re moving to the Citadel!” the boy told him excitedly. Joshua looked up at the woman and man who both watched the boy closely, both proud and hesitant. Parents, he assumed.

“Oh?” Joshua asked, looking back down at the boy. “Why’s that?” And why was he telling him? He wasn’t Santa Claus, he wasn’t going to forget where his house was if he left Earth.

“Mom’s a…” The boy’s face screwed up as he tried to remember the word. “Ambassador!”

“That’s good…” Joshua said, glancing up at the parents and finding they weren’t going to offer him any help.

“Daddy told me that you broke apart the Citadel before,” the boy said innocently.

Joshua pressed his lips together and took a step back. He swallowed thickly, trying to hide his shaking hands by gripping the strap of his bag tightly, ignoring the scent of burning flesh and the vivid images of blood, and bodies all over a hallway in his mind. “He did? Th…that’s...nice of him.”

“Daniel!” the woman, probably his mother, chastised gently, stepping up behind her son and placing her hands on his shoulders. She offered him an apologetic smile. She had scars on her hands.

“Yeah, but Daddy also said that you broke apart the Citadel, so we can go live on it now. That’s kinda weird don’t you think? You broke something so you could fix it?”

“I didn’t fix it,” Joshua told him, shaking his head slightly and taking another step back. Now was when he wanted to escape. Now was when Kaidan was supposed to step in and said ‘we have somewhere to go’, or touch his shoulder, or tell him it was alright in that low voice than no one else could hear.

He was mad at Kaidan for not being there.

“Hey,” the boy called, and his gaze focused again, finding he’d been staring blankly somewhere far down the hallway.

“Daniel that’s enough,” the woman said.

“Can’t I give him a hug? You said we’re supposed to say thank you with a hug,” the boy looked up at his mother innocently. He had no idea his words had caused any issue, not at all. His words wouldn’t have caused any issue in a _normal_ person.

“It’s okay,” he said, waving off the mother’s protest with a hand that shook and quickly returned to the strap of his bag.

The boy rushed over and wrapped his arms around his waist and Joshua’s lips twitched up slightly. He patted the boy’s back nervously.

“Thanks for helping us move to the Citadel, I don’t like Earth,” the boy said, looking up at him. Joshua chuckled nervously, setting his hand on the boy’s shoulder and forgetting it was shaking for a moment until the boy asked, “Why’s your hand shaking?” The curious boy pulled away from him and looked up at him with interest, even as his mother called his name indignantly again.

He pressed his lips together and shrugged. “Because I don’t like the Citadel much,” he replied, having been rudely reminded that the Citadel he was going to was the site of…well everything. Anderson had died here, he’d killed Anderson here. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of people had died here and he’d walked through their bodies to get to a button and kill millions more.

“Don’t worry,” the boy said cheerfully. “It’s not the same like before! It’s different now.”

He laughed nervously. “Yeah, sure.” Now he really just wanted to turn around and leave again, what the hell had he been thinking running away to the place which haunted his nightmares? He may as well have decided to take a vacation to Horizon or Akuze. He turned to leave. “I uh…I should go,” he told the boy, who was still watching him happily.

“Okay, bye Commander Shepard, come see my mom in the Presidium!”

“Bye Daniel,” he called over his shoulder, waving nervously before swiftly turning down a hallway.

Well, at least he had something he could do now. He’d go see Anderson’s memorial on the Presidium and maybe get _really_ drunk afterwards. He wasn’t much of a drinker, but lately he just wanted to check out for a while…a long while.

His omnitool beeped. He pulled it out and saw that Liara had messaged him again.

_I have secured you an apartment on the Citadel, there will be someone to meet you at your docking bay to escort you and give you the proper lock codes and credentials._

He sighed softly. She was so efficient, had _she_ slept? Did she? He sent back a quick ‘thank you’ and continued his much quieter ship tour, waiting for docking procedures to wrap up.

He wanted Kaidan to message him, but he was so mad at him that he couldn’t start the conversation himself. Kaidan should have been there. They should have sat down and talked about the issue instead of yelling at each other until he retreated. And he was always the one to retreat, lock himself away. For the longest time Kaidan had come after him regardless, but this time he hadn’t even tried.

He was tempted to just resend his last message, another plea with the same words, but he wasn’t even _at home_ anymore and he wasn’t even sure where home was.

The call to disembark went out and Joshua went to disembark at his designated exit, the ship had three, and found that Liara had been quite right again, there was a solemn looking asari Commando at the docking gate waiting to take him to his lodgings.

Everything was quick, with minimal talking, and then he was left to his own devices in a small apartment which was obviously meant for short time living. It was comfortable, but not too comfortable. Someone had cleaned the place top to bottom, there was no indication that anyone actually lived there. It could have been a show house, which was fine by him. He didn’t need a house for creating memories, he just needed somewhere to crash when he stopped being able to keep his eyes open.

He was sure there were things he could do on the Citadel which didn’t involve sleeping, or thinking, or anything. If he could work through the pain that often settled in his hips he could even help with the rebuilding effort.

And so he went, dropping his duffel bag in the door way, to go and find something to do to occupy his brain for a while.


	2. Thinking Over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year (ish) and Merry Christmas everyone!

He’d had too much to drink, probably a lot too much to drink. But people in clubs and bars liked to buy him drinks and he’d really needed them after his day. Going to the Reaper War memorial had probably been a really bad idea, at least for the first day.

First of all, people had recognised him right away. He was surprised he hadn’t figured out that it would happen on his own and worn a mask or something. Second of all, Anderson. People always told him that time passing was supposed to make things _better_ , but here he was proof that it apparently didn’t work that way. Admiral Anderson’s name among the list of heroes of the war who had ended up giving their lives. The Alliance had submitted a very accurate statue of the man to sit atop the Alliance memorial, kneeling on top of it and staring off into the distance.

He shook his head, downed the rest of his whisky and stared blearily at the time on his omnitool.

“Ten past two,” the krogan behind the bar told him gruffly.

“Okay,” he mumbled, staring into the bottom of his cup and wondering when he’d finished it. He turned his chair around and away from the bar so that he could stand. At some point the building had emptied of most of its patrons. He frowned.

“Hey, _hero_ ,” the krogan called to him.

He let the chair swing back around, feeling the world spin slightly. “Don’t call me that,” he slurred, trying to point a finger menacingly, but ending up pointing somewhere to the krogan’s left instead of at him.

The krogan snorted. “Do you have any idea where you’re going?”

“Nope. No _fucking_ clue,” Joshua replied, spinning back around in his chair and somehow making it to his feet while the world spun around. “Mm…Liara gave me a house but I don’t remember where that is…or where I am so…” He frowned, all of his words sounded like one long word coming out of his mouth. He shook his head and immediately regretted it.

“I could call you transport,” the krogan offered, though he didn’t sound that interested in his own offer.

“Nope.” The world spun as he wandered out of the bar, into the night of the Citadel wards. He really had no idea where he was, but it was _fine_ because his brain wasn’t talking to him and nothing hurt. It didn’t even occur to him that he could just check the location of his temporary apartment on his omnitool, he just staggered down the street.

He wasn’t even sure what walking in a straight line was, mostly using buildings as support as he picked his way down the street. He didn’t even know where he was going. When a turian passed and mentioned to her partner that she thought they’d just passed Commander Shepard he felt an awful chill run up his spine.

Said partner must have turned to him, because he heard a snort, and then the female…something said, “What, that drunk?” and they continued on their way.

He glared over his shoulder, but the change of neck position made his head spin and he settled for just glaring at the ground. He wasn’t _a_ drunk he was just drunk. But then he didn’t care anymore, and he continued on his slow journey through the wards.

The best part of the Citadel was that everything was well organised. Where there were stores there were stores, where there were clubs there were clubs, he had no problem finding a small green space to sit in. Or, at least, he figured he’d had no problem because he’d arrived in said green space and located a bench to sit on.

He looked at his omnitool, the orange glow of it stinging his eyes. 2:50. Oh okay, maybe he hadn’t had such an easy time finding the green space. He didn’t really remember what time he’d left the bar, or actually how he’d even _found_ the green space.

He sighed. Why wasn’t Kaidan with him? If Kaidan was with him they’d be in bed, and he’d be warm instead of sitting in a park on a bench in the middle of the Citadel. He’d be home. He turned to his messages, two from Liara and nothing else. He honestly didn’t really care that Liara had messaged him, though he wondered for a split second when she had and turned up blank so he thought of how Kaidan _hadn’t_ messaged him instead.

He stared at their meager collection of messages from over the last few months, _hey, hi, hello, I’m not coming home after all, sorry, I’m busy Joshua_ later _._

So, without a thought as to what time it was, or what time it may be for Kaidan wherever he was, he decided to fix that.

_Hi Kaidan._

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

 _Were lovwrs right? We shhoud have messages._ He frowned at the message, trying to figure out what was wrong with it, and ignoring the little ‘spell check’ alert at the side, before he decided that he didn’t really care and sent it.

_Joshua it’s 5AM, I have to work today._

_Yha, alot of work. Iss okay._

_Joshua is something wrong?_

_Nop. all good._ Which was when the nightly rain sequence began, and all at once the entire park was being soaked in dense rain. _Wet tho._

_Are you drunk?_

Joshua frowned at the message, trying to figure out if he was supposed to answer that question. As he pondered the philosophical effects of answering Kaidan’s question another message came.

_I have to get ready for work Joshua._

_Whre are yu?_

He could practically hear the sigh before the next reply, and it stung. _I can’t tell you, you know that._

_No. Its stupid, twlk t me._

_I’m busy, we’ll talk later when you’re sober and I have some time._

He pressed his lips together. Fuck _later_ , later kept never coming. He was done with later. He gripped his omnitool tightly in his hand, so tightly that the orange started flickering, the pressure warning flashing in the corner of the projected screen.

And then, well then it made a really satisfying noise where it popped loudly and then sounded like it sighed and the orange flickered away. He stared down at the no longer orange, his brain taking a moment to catch up. He turned his hand and looked at the well squished omnitool and clenched his teeth.

Suddenly everything wasn’t ‘all good’ anymore. He felt quite like he’d been dowsed in a bucket of water which _wasn’t_ the rain soaking through his clothes and chilling his skin. He shivered, clenched the omnitool tight in his hand again and then threw it. It clattered somewhere on the path in the dark.

Where the hell had he gone wrong? He was _shit_ at communicating, he knew that, but he’d thought he’d been a _good_ lover to Kaidan, at least most of the time. And now Kaidan just brushed him off, left him for months at a time and ‘couldn’t tell him’ where he’d gone. What if Kaidan died?...

What if Kaidan got injured, and died, and they never bothered to tell him because he was just the washed up _useless_ had-been Spectre? He didn’t want to have to live without Kaidan, he _couldn’t_ live without Kaidan.

A sob caught in his throat. He shook his head, curled forward. He wasn’t going to cry, he didn’t _want_ to cry. He wanted that floaty feeling he’d had before he’d picked up the stupid _fucking_ omnitool and decided to try and screw things over worse with Kaidan. And now what? He’d broken the damn thing.

He buried his face in his hands, quickly losing his battle with his emotions and the chemicals running through his system.

He wanted to be back on the Normandy, pleasantly drunk with Garrus and Thane and whining about things before _everything_ mattered.

He cried, and it rained on him, and his mind told him he was being stupid, cliché. Crying in a park, on a bench, in the rain? What a joke. Kaidan didn’t want him, even _he_ didn’t want him. What was the point of…

“Joshua.”

He jumped out of his skin, jumping to his feet and almost falling right over again, his military training kicking in. He held his arms up defensively, ready to take a hit and punch back if he could. The rain, the tears, the alcohol, and his hair drooping into his eyes, blurring his vision for a moment before his eyes focused and he frowned.

No, he knew that voice, and the face, and the person standing a few metres away from him.

“L…Liara?” He sniffed, shook his head. What the hell was Liara doing there?

“Your omnitool stopped reporting in, it…are you okay?” Liara took a step closer to him, activating the motion sensor street light which had shut off when he’d stopped making very much movement on the bench. Joshua flinched, relaxed his stance and ran his hands roughly down his face. Fuck.

“Yeah, all good. It’s raining,” he said, throwing a chuckle in there just for good measure.

“It always starts raining at 3AM in the wards Joshua.”

“Oh, good to know,” he replied, turning away from her and sniffling.

“You’re not okay,” she told him, he felt her touch his arm. Her hand was much warmer than he was.

“No, I’m fine,” he lied. “Omnitool broke when it started raining I guess.”

“They are waterproof Joshua…”

“Oh.” Right, of _course_ they were waterproof.

“Do you want to tell me what happened?” she asked. Her voice was always so calming, so light. What he wanted to do was fall asleep, curl up on the pavement and just turn off for a few more hours.

He shook his head, sniffed again and rubbed under his nose with the back of his arm even though rubbing wet arm on wet face didn’t really help him at all. “Why don’t you just check for yourself?” he asked, with no animosity, turning back to her and meeting her concerned look with the most impassive one he could muster.

“I do not just read your communications Joshua, I use it to track you and make sure that you are safe. I would never purposefully invade your privacy,” she told him gently.

Joshua snorted. “I think your definition of privacy is different than mine.” He felt so uncomfortably sober.

She reached up, touched his cheek lightly. “I can take you home if you would like,” she offered, completely ignoring his slight.

“I don’t want to go home.” The desperation that crept into his voice made him wince.

“Back to the apartment, then.”

He sighed. “Fine,” he relented, shaking his head. He wanted to tell her that there was no point, there was no point to anything anymore. Kaidan…Kaidan was as done with him as he was with being left behind and his heart _hurt_ and he… He looked away from Liara, turning away from the warmth of her fingers on his cheek.

“I am sure that Kaidan is just going through a hard time,” Liara told him, as if reading his mind.

“Yeah, because he has _me_ as a lover,” he snapped. Then, the reality of what he’d said dawned on him. He looked down in shock at Liara, who looked just as surprised as he did.

“Joshua, surely you don’t—“ He turned away from her, turning back in the direction she’d come from and starting his way down the walkway.

“You said you’ll take me back to the apartment?” he asked, trying desperately to outrun his own words.

“Yes…” Liara relented softly, coming up beside him and taking his elbow. He was still swaying a bit, his feet not quite working, he was also suddenly aware of how much his hip was hurting.

He wanted Kaidan to be there, so that he could lean on him. But that was the problem. That was _his_ problem. He kept wanting Kaidan to be there because _he_ needed him. He couldn’t remember the last time Kaidan had said he wanted to be with him because he needed _him_.

He sniffed again, pressing his lips together as they trembled and an errant tear found its way down his cheek. Liara didn’t say anything, just silently guided him to her sky-car and took him back to his apartment.

-o-

He awoke at noon, with his head pounding and his body aching. He couldn’t remember much from the night before, but he could remember the messages with Kaidan, the breaking of the omnitool, and Liara showing up.

He glanced over at the side table beside the tiny bed he was sleeping on, on it was a new omnitool and a messily written message in broken English.

_New tool, don’t break. Take pills, fix headache and pain._

_Liara_

He sighed, sitting up and groaning. He didn’t remember the trip back to the apartment or actually going to sleep. Or…anything past getting into Liara’s sky-car really. She had been kind enough to leave him with a way to try and erase his stupidity from the night before, and he couldn’t even remember whether or not he’d said goodnight to her.

He reached over to the omnitool, loading it up and finding she’d at least transferred (somehow) his contact information and some of his data over from the crushed mess he’d created from the night before. His messages were missing though, and he knew that since each omnitool had its own call number he’d need to message everyone so that they could actually contact him, but…

He sighed, starting a call with Liara. It connected immediately.

“Good morning.” Her soft voice still managed to grate on his headache.

“’Morning.” He rubbed a hand down his face, slumping forward and groaning softly. “Thanks for um…putting up with me last night.”

“Anytime you need me, please call,” Liara told him gently, making eye contact with him that he couldn’t manage to keep because he knew he wouldn’t call her. He never called anyone. He’d become dependent on Kaidan over the last few years and he just needed to…shut himself off for a while so that he could deal with things on his own again. “Joshua…”

Of course Liara would see through that.

“I’m going to go do…something, I don’t know,” Joshua told her, trying to derail the subject.

“Like what?” The nervous nature of Liara’s question made him bristle a bit.

“Whatever the heck I feel like? Maybe I’ll go run around naked on the Presidium!”

Liara’s lips tipped up. “You haven’t taken the pain medicine yet, have you?”

He pressed his lips together. She had a great deal of patience for him snapping at her. He sighed and downed the pain medication without another word, staring off at the other side of the room once he was finished.

“Joshua,” Liara called him back. He didn’t know how long he’d been staring into space, but when he looked back at her she was looking at him with a great deal of pity. “Are you okay? I can come back if—“

“I’m fine.” He lied, blatantly. He was usually better than that, coming up with something that was almost a lie or almost the truth. Liara tilted her head slightly, expression one of disappointment.

“Alright, call me if you need anything.”

And the call was cut.

Joshua stared blankly at the blank holographic screen for a moment, put the omnitool back on the side table, rolled over, pulled the blankets over his head, and then went back to sleep.

The next time he woke up it was dark, and he pulled himself out of bed to go to the kitchen and find there was food in the fridge that he could put together and eat within a few minutes, so he did that. He wasn’t even hungry, he just wanted to put something in his body so that he could go back to sleep without being interrupted.

He hurt too much, and Liara’s pain medication wasn’t making it any better.


	3. Life Over

And so two weeks had gone by.

At some point he’d got out of bed and _not_ decided that the best course of action was to drink himself back to sleep. He’d reminded himself he was Commander Shepard, dragged himself out of bed, and signed himself up for relief and rebuilding efforts.

He’d never had a chance with Earth, too busy being unconscious or recovering. But the Citadel still had pieces that were being held on precariously by temporary restraints, buildings that were barely standing, and piles upon piles of debris that needed to be cleaned up. The Citadel wasn’t bigger than earth, but it was apparently harder for the council to find volunteers to put together a place they’d never lived on. Some people were still skeptical of the Citadel’s safety.

So he threw himself into it, putting on his best ‘hero face’ and working with people whose names he couldn’t be bothered to remember. No one seemed to care as long as he smiled charismatically at them and pulled twice his weight. It worked well because he woke up too early in the morning, worked until he couldn’t feel his fingers, and then went to bed too late at night to do any thinking.

He’d quickly come to the conclusion that he didn’t need to drink himself into oblivion to feel nothing. Which was just fine with him because his mind had been plaguing him with nightmares of Kaidan dying, Kaidan actually leaving him, Kaidan being the one he shot at the end of the hallway on the Citadel, and other such creative things.

He was so exhausted he couldn’t think half the time, his body going into autopilot much as it had closer to the end of the war and during the fight with the Collectors.

Liara kept calling him.

“Joshua, you look awful,” she told him one night as he stumbled through the door of his apartment. “When was the last time you ate? Or slept?”

He looked into the screen on his omnitool, kicking off his shoes and finding his way into the bedroom so he could sit on the bed. His feet were hurting, probably because he’d been on his feet since 5 that morning, but he hadn’t noticed until he sat down.

“Look, Liara, I’m really glad that you’ve got enough free time that you can worry about me, but I’m fine,” he told her, running his hand up the back of his hair which was getting too long. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d trimmed it.

“Would you like to try saying that again, Joshua?” Liara asked, looking at him sternly.

It took him a moment to realise he’d hurt her feelings. He frowned back at her, trying to remember what he’d said. He sighed, leaning forward slightly and resting his head in his hand. “Look Liara… I’m sorry that I’m worrying you, I just…I can’t sleep, I can’t think. And frankly? I don’t want to do either of those things anyway.”

All at once the stern look melted off of her face, in place was one of sympathy. “Have you tried _talking_ to Kaidan?”

Joshua laughed derisively. “No, I tried that before. It didn’t work.”

Liara paused, looked away for a moment and looked like she was typing something on a separate console. “Joshua…have you even sent him your new contact details?” The look on his face must have said something, she sighed exasperatedly and gave him a pained look. “Your birthday is coming up.” He snorted. “It’s next week, why don’t you just send him something? He’ll be…I am sure he’ll be going home before then.”

Joshua shook his head. He sniffed and felt himself tearing up for no reason. He ran his hand roughly down his face and shook his head again, finding himself frustrated with the conversation. “No. No I’m not going to go crawling back like a god damn puppy _again_!” he snapped, then looked up at Liara with surprise. She had an impassive look on her face, he dropped his gaze to his knees. “Sorry…”

Liara sighed softly. “You’ve lost weight,” she muttered, apparently feeling kind enough to change the subject.

“Energy bars don’t have much nutrients.”

“Joshua, I’m going to start sending you a morning meal before you go to work and an evening meal while you are there. Please, _eat them_?”

Joshua sighed, looking up to see Liara giving him a strongly imploring look. “You know it’s not really ‘work’,” he told her, unable to protest against the meals because he knew she’d send them anyways. She was always trying to feed him, ever since she’d come along on the SR2.

“And I would really like to get you something for the sleep…” she continued, ignoring him.

“Oh good, let’s put Joshua on pills again,” he grumbled, tugging at a fuzz ball on his sock and glaring at it like it was the enemy.

“Joshua,” Liara chastised gently.

“Yeah, fine…okay.” His lips tugged to the side of their own accord. She was putting so much effort into taking care of him, and while he knew they were friends and that they cared for each other he was confused as to why. “Liara?” he started, looking up at her as she tilted her head slightly. “Why do people always want to take care of me when all I want to do is stop existing for a while?”

One side of her lips tugged down suddenly and her breath hitched slightly. She glanced somewhere past her screen for a short moment before she regained composure and smiled at him sadly. “Because we care about you. And we _don’t_ want you to stop existing for a while.”

He realised the way he’d worded his question was terrible. He shook his head roughly, holding his face in his hand and frowning frustratedly. “That was a terrible thing to say, I’m sorry…I-I don’t know what’s wrong with me I…”

Liara hushed him softly and he looked up at her again. The look on her face was reassuring, and sympathetic all over again. “Do you remember what Dr. Shaek told you about relapses?”

“But nothing happened!” he protested. Liara’s look sharpened just a bit, urging him to actually remember what Shaek had said. He glared at his sock again. “He said that…I didn’t need the pills ‘for now’, but I may need them again in the future. ‘Sometimes the brain just relapses and you need the support again.’…or something.”

“I’m going to send some mood regulators along as well as the sleeping medication,” Liara told him gently.

“But Liara I—“ He looked up at her pleadingly.

“Joshua.” Liara’s expression was suddenly stern again, slowly relaxing when he sighed softly, giving in by letting his tense shoulders fall limp. “Dr. Shaek said it would be the best course of action.”

“You’ve spoken to him?” he asked, all at once he wanted to talk to the man. She nodded. “Can I talk to him?”

“Yes, of course,” she told him with a smile. “I will forward the contact information,” she glanced down at her console and did something. His omnitool made a soft ‘ping’ noise with the receipt of the information. “But, for now I want you to go to sleep. I will send a meal for you tomorrow morning. _Eat it._ ”

He nodded slowly, feeling great appreciation bloom in his chest. “Thank you Liara…for everything.”

“It is nothing. It is selfish, but, I feel like I’m making up for being unable to help you directly after you woke up from your coma. I…I’m glad that I can help you.” Liara told him gently, glancing down at her console as her cheeks coloured slightly.

They said their goodbyes, and Joshua updated his contact information. Then he crawled into bed. Unfortunately it was a night like many others. Despite being told to get some sleep he lay there for a while, and when he finally did pass out his sleep was filled with fleeting nightmares, that left him jumping awake gasping for breath several times throughout the night.

-o-

It took him three more days of work to actually call Shaek. It was a lot easier to pretend like nothing was wrong and to continue on with his half existence. He didn’t have to remember names or faces, and as long as he ate the meals Liara was sending him and took the pills she’d given him she seemed content to leave him alone, only sending him a stray communication here or there asking if he was okay, whether he’d called Shaek or Kaidan, and asking how his day had gone.

Three days had gone by, which meant there were only four more days until his birthday. He was desperately trying not to remember that his birthday was coming.

It was just another day, just like it had always been another day, no matter how many people clapped him on the shoulder or wished him well. Or at least, he told himself that until he believed it.

When he finally called Shaek it was after work, late because he’d been arguing with himself on whether to call. He had no idea where Shaek was, or what time it was where he was, but the man had clearly been awake and smiled kindly when he answered.

Joshua felt a tug of loneliness for no reason, like just seeing Shaek had woken up his want to be social all over again.

“Good evening Mr. Shepard,” he said pleasantly.

Joshua laughed uncomfortably. “You know everyone has been calling me Commander Shepard for the past several weeks, no matter how much I tell them that I’m not a Commander anymore?”

Shaek’s smile warmed slightly. “In fact, you are an Admiral now.”

“Well not anymore,” Joshua grumbled.

“You will always maintain that rank Mr. Shepard, whether or not you want it.”

“You know, I think I got the wrong contact info from Liara, I meant to call Shaek, not reality,” Joshua grumbled further, sighing softly and staring blankly at the floor. Of course calling Shaek was _exactly_ like calling reality, but no one would ever be able to convince Joshua of that.

Shaek chuckled softly. “I had no intent to make you uncomfortable. I simply thought you may want to see it from a different point of view.” Joshua didn’t reply, paying too much attention to a knot on the wood of the floor. The wood was synthesised, the knot put in by a printer as opposed to nature. “Mr. Shepard.”

He looked up at Shaek’s face, always so imploring. It felt like even if he didn’t tell him everything that was going on in his mind, Shaek’s eyes would just bore into his soul and get the information anyways. There was no point in hiding things from him because he’d know eventually anyway.

“How are you?” the man asked.

Joshua just stared at him for a moment, struck silent with his mouth hanging open slightly, because he both didn’t want to answer and really wanted to answer. With Liara it was like, no matter how many times she asked, he could just lie even if she knew he was lying because she almost never pressed him. Even when she knew that he was absolutely not okay, she let him deny it at least a little bit. But he’d never put up that wall with Shaek before.

“I…” He felt like his throat closed, the sound coming out as a croak rather than a word. He dropped his gaze to his legs, crossed underneath him on the side of the bed. “I don’t think that Kaidan loves me anymore, and I can’t handle it, so I ran away, but I still can’t handle it, and it’s not getting any better.” His voice slowly pitched higher as he forced the words past the lump in his throat. Before he reached the end of his sentence tears had built up and spilled over.

“Running away doesn’t make it any better,” Shaek told him gently.

“I’ve never run away from anything before how the hell was I supposed to know?” he snapped, covering his face with one hand and falling silent for several moments except for the sobbing which he couldn’t stop. Shaek didn’t say anything. Joshua tried to rub the tears off of his cheeks without moving his hand, because no matter how well he knew the man he would never feel completely comfortable crying in front of anyone.

He stayed silent as he tried to reel himself back in. Shaek’s silence seemed to trigger his brain to helpfully offer him all the times he _had_ run away in his life. Maybe not literally, but figuratively? Mentally? Many, many, times. Never talking about Virmire and Ashley, or Mordin, or Thane, or Legion. Trying to forget everything that had happened to him on Mindoir. Hiding away how he’d really felt about Akuze. Thinking he could just hide away all the memories of what had happened on the Citadel, and thinking he could just continue on like nothing had ever happened.

“That’s a lie…” he croaked finally. “I…I’ve run away from plenty…”

Shaek made a soft ‘hmm’ sound which sounded a lot like agreeing without agreeing. “Do you want to know what I think?”

“Yes?” Joshua looked up at the screen desperately. “You think way better than I do, and honestly anything I think right now is probably worth its weight in space dust.”

“Well, I wouldn’t think that I think ‘better’ than one of the best strategic minds of the galaxy, but if you will listen then I will tell you.” Shaek always spoke with a certain wisdom and understanding of the way things worked that Joshua had once wondered if it was just a drell quality.

“I’ll listen…”

“What you are experiencing right now is a mental health relapse. Do not give me that look, it is mental health and it _is_ a relapse. So you suppose your behaviour has been strange, or off, at all in the past several months?” Shaek watched him blankly through the screen.

He stared at his knees again. “The nightmares started coming back…I mean, I had them anyways, but they started getting worse again…I wasn’t sleeping. Kaidan stopped staying home as often. He started taking more and more work…then I yelled at him for it and he stormed out.” He took a shuddering breath, feeling more tears coming on. “I didn’t mean to I…”

“I am in no way blaming you for _anything_ Joshua, and you shouldn’t either. But, think about your tendency to get…anti-social when you are exhausted, or…”

“Irrational, stupid, nasty, and unlovable? Yeah no wonder he left. He probably found someone better. Who can actually do things, and work, and isn’t just some broken, washed up, so called ‘hero’ who sits at home all day and rots.”

“Joshua.” Shaek’s voice was stern. He had clearly both waited for him to finish and wanted him to stop his train of thought. When Joshua’s vision cleared he was faced with a very serious, yet understanding expression.

“Shaek I thought that…I thought that it would be okay if I died again.”

“Dr. T’Soni told me as much,” Shaek told him, nodding. “This may be a cruel thing to say, but you _cannot_ base your existence off of one man Mr. Shepard.”

“B…But what if I want to?” he asked, watching as Shaek just tilted his head slightly. There was no answer, leaving Joshua to stew in his thoughts again.

As far as he knew, he’d never really had anything to base his existence on besides Admiral Anderson, the Reapers, and Kaidan. Before that he’d just existed, without meaning or purpose. He felt like he had to give himself purpose, or else he was nothing. There was no bigger purpose than defeating the Reapers, or Kaidan.

“Then what am I supposed to base it on?” he asked finally, irritability slipping into his tone and reminding him how tired he was. Now that he thought of it, it wasn’t four more days until his birthday anymore, it was three.

Shaek took a breath, and then smiled at him sadly. “Living.”

“What?” Joshua asked, shocked. “That’s stupid!”

“If you base your existence on the Reapers, you kill the Reapers and nothing else. If you base your existence on Kaidan, you love Kaidan and nothing else. If you base your existence on _living_ …”

Joshua stared at him, waiting for the answer and then realising he was being prompted to come up with the answer on his own. He frowned. When Anderson had been his reason for living, he’d become the perfect soldier. When he’d focused on the Reapers, he’d destroyed every last one of them in an almost inhuman feat. Now that all he had was Kaidan he just sat at home, missing him, and loving him, and doing nothing else.

“You…you live?” he asked, hoping for Shaek to nod and tell him whether he was right or wrong, but Shaek just smiled at him.

“That’s up to you.”

“What if…I just want Kaidan to love me again?” He knew he sounded pitiful, but he’d sounded pitiful more than once in his man’s presence and he’d never judged him before. He always sat before him with a mostly impenetrable gaze and a sort of grace that he’d never seen in any other person, besides maybe Thane or Samara.

“Of course you’re allowed to do that, but don’t make him your reason to live. It’s not healthy.”

Joshua sighed, shifting back on the bed and tugging a knee up to his chest so he could rest his forehead on it. His head was too heavy. He didn’t even want to hold his arm up so that he could see Shaek’s face anymore.

“Perhaps you should get some sleep Mr-“

“Is it going to always happen like this?” he asked, a whine creeping into his voice. “Am I always going to just get worse, and alienate people, and have these nightmares and be all alone and…?”

“You will find, Mr. Shepard, that you would be hard pressed to actually find yourself alone. As for the rest of it, it is a possibility. We could always change our medication plan, make it so that you are on a low dose of the mood regulators at all times, and just raise it when you feel like they are having no effect. And, maybe, next time you will let me know when things get this bad, before you find yourself on the Citadel drinking yourself into oblivion every night.”

When Joshua looked up, just raising his gaze as opposed to his head, Shaek was giving him a chastising look.

“Liara told you about that.”

“Liara tells me _everything_ , Mr. Shepard,” Shaek told him. “But I think it is time that you get some sleep, we will speak about this more when you are more coherent and have a few hours of rest in you.”

“Mmm…okay.” He wouldn’t really argue, his brain was past arguing. He hadn’t even been able to come up with a good reason why he shouldn’t take the mood regulators, other than he didn’t want to. “G’night doctor…” he mumbled, his words slurring together slightly.

“Good night Mr. Shepard. Do not forget to take your sleeping medication, and please get some rest.”

With that, the call was cut off.

Joshua sat there for a moment, sifting through the mud that was his brain and thinking over the conversation. Eventually he decided that he was too tired to think about life altering decisions and living differently, so he just did as Shaek said and went to bed.

At least he felt a little bit better, though he couldn’t tell if it was because he’d spoken to Shaek or spent half of the conversation crying.


	4. Waiting Over

Joshua spent the next few days talking with Shaek every night when he got back from work. For the most part they talked about absolutely nothing, how his day went, how he was feeling, things they’d spoken about in the weeks winding down before Joshua had decided he didn’t need the support anymore.

He was pretty sure now that it was the worst decision he could have made. He’d been caught up in the feeling of being ‘better’, and ended up making a mess. There wasn’t anything more discouraging than knowing he wouldn’t ever be better, that sometimes he would just feel like he’d gone back to square one for no reason.

“Would you like me to move back to Vancouver?” Shaek asked.

Joshua was surprised by the question, posed so innocently when he hadn’t even thought about going back to the empty apartment in weeks. There was no point in being there. Even the fish didn’t need him, cared for by the VI which had an entire year’s worth of food installed in it.

He must have given Shaek a strange look, because the man simply smiled and added, “For when you return.”

Joshua knew he was being told to go back, but he didn’t want to. He could spend the rest of his life existing like this, helping repair the Citadel until he couldn’t anymore, except he knew he couldn’t. Kaidan would go home eventually, Joshua had to face him some time and figure out what was left of them.

When Joshua didn’t reply Shaek glanced somewhere off screen for a moment and then looked up at him with a completely different expression, like he hadn’t asked anything. “It would appear to be your birthday now, happy birthday Mr. Shepard,” Shaek said to him gently.

Joshua grimaced, but not wanting to appear ungrateful for Shaek’s consideration, he forced a smile to his face. “Thanks,” he muttered. Shaek tilted his head, and the smile slipped slightly, Joshua knew he was seeing right through it.

“Liara can book you a ticket back to earth at a moment’s notice, I’m sure you know,” Shaek told him.

Joshua felt a spark of annoyance, pursing his lips slightly. “Why are you pushing that so much Shaek?” He’d expected him to let it drop when he hadn’t commented on it, instead Shaek gave him that indulgent smile, the one that said he should know.

“Are you home right now, Mr. Shepard?” Shaek asked him.

Joshua opened his mouth to reply that, yes of course he was home, but when he thought of home he thought of carpeted bedroom and living room floors, the way too large black leather couch, the way his office chair felt like it had been made for him, and Kaidan. The corner of his mouth twitched downward. Even if he were at the apartment there was no guarantee that Kaidan would be there, in fact he was sure Kaidan wouldn’t be there.

“I don’t think you want to hear the answer to that,” Joshua replied, muttering down at his knees rather than making eye contact with the drell in the screen.

“I do make a habit of asking questions I don’t want the answer to,” Shaek replied, tone completely dry for all the statement was dripping in sarcasm.

“Kaidan is home.” Joshua sighed, shifting back further on to his bed and staring at the ceiling instead of his screen.

“Yes,” Shaek concluded.

Joshua shook his head slightly. “I thought I wasn’t supposed to be living for anyone but myself?”

There was a moment of silence as Joshua thought that he’d finally stumped the doctor who was ever forthcoming with wisdom, but when Joshua looked back at the screen Shaek was simply observing something happening beyond the range of the camera. At first he seemed merely interested, and then he slowly arched a brow and turned back to look at Joshua.

“There is a difference between living for someone and feeling that someone’s presence makes you at home,” Shaek told him, his tone the same even though he was looking quite disapprovingly at him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Joshua asked, furrowing his brow in confusion.

“How many times were you urged to send your contact information to Mr. Alenko?”

Joshua’s frown deepened. “A few times? I lost track of time, besides…” Besides he didn’t want to have another conversation where he was brushed off and left feeling abandoned again.

His omnitool blipped with the receipt of a message, which flashed on the screen as “Happy birthday Joshua, you’re in trouble,” from Garrus.

Joshua didn’t know whether to frown or raise an eyebrow at the message, why would he be in trouble with Garrus?

When he focused back on Shaek, who was frowning himself now, Liara suddenly came into view. She looked haggard and stressed. “Joshua,” she started, already sounding put out for some reason. “You never shared your contact information with Kaidan.”

Joshua pressed his lips together just as another message popped up on the screen.

“If you were going to run off, why didn’t you call me up to fly you around the galaxy? I feel betrayed Joshua, betrayed!” came from Joker, followed by one from EDI which just said, “And happy birthday.”

“I was busy,” Joshua replied to Liara irritably, not understanding the sudden influx of messages. “I doesn’t matter,” he added, frowning at the place where the messages had been just seconds before.

Liara sighed, and stepped out of Shaek’s camera’s field of view. Shaek seemed to watch her for a moment and then turned back to Joshua, looking a mix of amused and disappointed. Joshua frowned back at him and pressed his lips together.

“It would appear that Liara is upset, Mr. Shepard, why do you suppose that is?” Shaek asked him. He obviously knew, and that he already knew was just making the situation more grating.

“How about you tell me instead of dancing around the subject like everyone else is doing?” Joshua snapped.

He wasn’t stupid, he was just purposefully ignoring the obvious fact that Kaidan had got in touch with Liara about Joshua being unreachable. He didn’t want to believe it because it was too good to be true to think that Kaidan had gone to their house and was worried that he wasn’t there.

Shaek looked at him pityingly, aware that Joshua was purposefully ignoring the clear facts. Kaidan had clearly contacted other people besides Liara too.

“I didn’t send my new information to _anyone_ ,” Joshua pointed out stubbornly.

“Which I believe Liara rectified when she sent the information to Mr. Alenko, and everyone else you neglected to contact,” Shaek told him patiently. “Unsurprisingly he was alarmed to arrive home to a completely empty house.”

“The fish are there,” Joshua grumbled, frowning down at his knees. “Besides…I…”

“It would appear you may have been mistaken.”

“He’s the one who didn’t want to talk to me, not the other way around,” Joshua reminded Shaek stubbornly. The doctor sighed softly, tilting his head to one side and waiting. Joshua didn’t know what he was waiting for. He huffed. “You know, it’s gotten really late, I think I’m going to go to bed.”

“You may want to rethink that, Mr. Alenko will certainly be trying to contact you once we’re finished here. Perhaps you want to get your thoughts in line before that happens.” Shaek wasn’t asking, he was telling, and Joshua felt his stomach flip over.

He didn’t _want_ to talk to Kaidan. He didn’t want to end up fighting with him, and he certainly didn’t want to tip what was left of their relationship into the garbage along with the rest of it. Although it was completely unlikely, Kaidan was apparently at their house after all, he didn’t want Kaidan to choose his job over him again.

“I don’t want to talk to Kaidan,” Joshua told Shaek, letting his gaze drop to his lap. He felt like a coward. He could apparently face down a Reaper but not the prospective end of his relationship.

“Yes, that much is obvious to me Mr. Shepard, but why?” Shaek probably knew, he was just trying to force Joshua to say it out loud.

“I don’t want to argue with him.”

“You don’t want to hear his side of this?” Shaek asked.

“What side could there be?” Joshua asked, frowning at his knees, yet unwilling to make eye-contact with the doctor.

“Imagine watching someone you love very much on a downward spiral and they never ask for help. A stubborn and generally self-sufficient person who takes offense when people help without being asked, and insists on suffering in silence.”

Joshua swallowed thickly and pressed his lips together tightly, still staring at his knees. Okay, that probably sounded like him. “But he’s the one who chose to leave,” Joshua insisted softly.

“Yes, and that would be a mistake on his part. One would think you’ve both had your share of the other walking out, but that is something to talk with Mr. Alenko about,” Shaek told him gently. Joshua looked up at him cautiously, only to find that all of the disappointment from earlier had turned back into the doctor’s default ‘helpful and thoughtful’ face.

“So, what, you think I scared him off?” Joshua asked, not really accusing just trying to figure out where he was supposed to stand in all of this.

“I think that you have a hard time showing your weaknesses, and that you didn’t want to accept, even to yourself, that you were feeling unwell again. I think that you both tend to do things which isolate yourselves from each other, and that you need to talk to Mr. Alenko about that as well.”

“You were just telling me _not_ to talk to Kaidan until I’d put my thoughts in line…” Joshua grumbled, getting up from his bed and going into the living room to sit on the couch he’d never used before.

“Knowing what to talk about would be a part of putting said thoughts into line Mr. Shepard,” Shaek told him with a soft chuckle.

“We both left, technically,” Joshua muttered. Shaek agreed softly. “Both of us were harbouring…some sort of resentment, judging by the fight we had…I don’t really remember much about it, I was so tired. I should have told Kaidan sooner that I needed help, or you, or someone.”

“Can we come to the conclusion that you were both mistaken in different ways?” Shaek asked, like urging a child to the right decision.

“Yes.” Joshua nodded, staring at the blank white wall across from the couch. “But that doesn’t make me any less afraid that it’s over.”

“That’s because you didn’t hear the panic in his voice when he called Liara. You’ve negotiated far more difficult deals than a slightly bruised relationship Mr. Shepard, you’ve created relationships from nothing. You’ll be just fine,” Shaek told him gently.

“You have too much faith in me doctor,” Joshua told him, shaking his head.

“You’ll be _fine_ Mr. Shepard.”

Joshua sighed, unsure whether he should believe it or if Shaek was just trying to bolster his confidence. Where had that gone anyways? “I’ll talk to you later doctor…”

“I’ll be back in Vancouver within the week Mr. Shepard, give me a call before then and we can meet in person.”

Joshua felt himself smiling slightly, just one corner of his lips tugging upwards. “Will do.”

Shaek really had way too much faith in him. He cut the communication.

Almost immediately his omnitool began to beep, with the familiar number of Kaidan’s omnitool showing up. He felt his stomach flip, and connected the call while trying to keep his heartbeat at an acceptable rate.

At first Kaidan looked very displeased, but the look was almost immediately wiped from his face and was instead replaced by a look of concern. “Where are you?” he asked, prior displeasure seeping into his voice.

“Uh…” Joshua looked around the very dark living room like he was realising he was there for the first time, he really just didn’t want to make eye contact with Kaidan. “The Citadel…Liara didn’t tell you?”

“No, she was too busy being exasperated that you hadn’t sent me your updated contact information,” Kaidan told him. “You’ve lost weight.”

Joshua scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, Liara mentioned.” He didn’t like the way their conversation was so strained, he felt like they were back at Alliance HQ at the beginning of the Reaper invasion, like there was a wall between them.

“What happened?”

Joshua decided that Kaidan was asking about the omnitool. “I broke it. I squeezed it pretty hard apparently, I don’t actually remember that well.”

Kaidan paused, Joshua looked at the wall of their apartment behind him. He was sitting on the couch in their living room. Joshua suddenly felt homesick, he wanted to be there too. “When?”

“Why does it matter?” Joshua asked, his tone slipping into annoyance by accident.

“I tried to contact you and you never replied,” Kaidan told him.

“Bullshit.” The word and tone startled both of them, Kaidan looking confused and Joshua feeling hurt all over again. “I tried to contact _you_ and you never replied and then told me ‘later’ again and again.”

Kaidan frowned at him. “I told you that I was working and that I was busy. I tried to contact you afterwards. You know I don’t have a lot of time to talk when I’m working.”

“Yeah, so you lined up those jobs pretty well didn’t you? And when I told you to come home you told me “later”, so I came here, and when I tried to contact you from here you told me “later” because work is so much more important to you!”

Joshua’s mouth was running rampant while his brain wanted to turn on the brakes. Now he’d steered the conversation right back into the territory it had been on the last night they’d spoken face to face. While his mouth was insistent on opening the can of worms all over again his brain was noticing how tired Kaidan looked, and how he looked like he had a scar peaking up under his shirt collar that hadn’t been there before.

“I told you later because you kept messaging me when I was in the middle of meetings and missions! I didn’t take those jobs on purpose Joshua, I can’t just start turning down jobs because you want me to.” Kaidan’s voice rose.

“That’s the problem isn’t it? You can’t just give up work for my sake! That would be unthinkable right? It’s so much easier to run off and work than have to see me!” Joshua snapped. Kaidan’s brows twitched up, his eyes widening slightly. Joshua gaped, feeling like he’d _definitely_ stepped right into the problem, and all at once he wasn’t angry he was _hurt_. “Is… Is it true? You’ve been working so much because you don’t want to see me?”

“No!” Kaidan exclaimed then shook his head as if to calm himself. “No,” he repeated, calmer, “I _want_ to see you.”

But. There was a ‘but’ there, Joshua could practically see it. He felt a lump in his throat.

“You know I love you…right?” He’d sent a message similar to that which had never gotten a reply. Was that it? Kaidan didn’t think he loved him? Or Kaidan didn’t love him anymore? Why would he want to see him if he didn’t love him anymore?

“Yes, I do know that.” But Kaidan wasn’t making eye contact with him anymore.

“But? You still love _me_ , right?”

“I do, so much.”

Joshua gritted his teeth. “Then why are we here? Why am I on the Citadel, why did you work for three months straight and then not bother to show up at the house until my birthday?”

“You broke the Normandy model,” Kaidan commented.

“It was an accident! I thought…” He swallowed thickly, unable to understand _why_ he’d thought what he’d thought. He hadn’t been sleeping and he’d been irrational. “I thought that since it had broken that our relationship was over, so I ran. I knew you weren’t coming back anyways, what was the point of rotting away at home?”

“Why would you think that?” Kaidan asked, ignoring the bite in the statement.

“Because I hadn’t slept in weeks so my brain wasn’t working properly, obviously. Who the hell cares about a stupid model anyways…?”

There was silence for several minutes, like the wall between them was growing and they couldn’t get past it. Joshua’s stomach turned and his hand found its way to his face, threading through his hair and squeezing. He couldn’t let it be like this, he’d solved the relationship between the geth and the quarians for gods’ sake! Why the hell couldn’t he communicate with the person he loved more than anything in the universe?

“I started having nightmares again,” he muttered, feeling his lip trembling against his will.

“I know,” Kaidan muttered.

“You didn’t say anything about it.”

“Neither did you,” Kaidan added.

“I couldn’t sleep without you there, and I started noticing that your assignments were getting longer, and I _knew_ you were trying to avoid me but I couldn’t figure out why…and then you took another assignment immediately upon getting home and I…”

“It wasn’t on purpose, it was something I couldn’t turn down.”

“That’s nice,” Joshua snapped, but then shook his head slightly. “Why did you start avoiding me?”

“Because I couldn’t do anything,” Kaidan replied, his tone desperate.

“So, what, you thought that leaving me to rot was a better plan?” Joshua asked, his tone just as desperate. “I thought you said you’d stay with me no matter what!”

“You have no idea what it’s like to watch you fall into nothing and never ask anyone to help, never trust anyone with your pain. I kept trying to get you to ask me for help, tell me anything, but you brushed me off over and over again.”

“Well sorry I’m a selfish prick when my brain is fucking broken Kaidan, I’ll remember to keep you in mind next time!” Joshua snapped.

He wasn’t trying to blame Kaidan, he didn’t want to blame him. He just hurt, and he wanted to stop hurting. But yelling wasn’t making the hurt go away, it was making it worse, sharper. He felt like he was going to start crying, and he really didn’t want to do that.

It didn’t even occur to him why he didn’t want Kaidan to see him cry, why he felt like he needed to maintain his façade of health when Kaidan _obviously_ knew at this point that he wasn’t okay.

“You don’t understand how much you shut people out Joshua. It’s not like you just brush it off, you actually end the conversation in a way that makes it seem like pushing it would end in consequences,” Kaidan told him, clearly using all his might to keep his tone calm while Joshua’s kept climbing higher.

“What consequences Kaidan? I’m not your commanding officer, I’m a washed up joke of a soldier who can’t even go running for more than 15 minutes a stretch! And I asked you to come home, I _begged_ you to come home and you ignored me!”

“And I’m sorry for that, I was in too deep at that point and was trying to avoid any argument because I was _scared_ that I’d lose you! You’d been hiding things from me, I thought you didn’t trust me anymore.” Kaidan’s expression was imploring, but clearly he was getting more distressed. At least they weren’t full on yelling at each other like they’d been the night he’d left. Raised voices, but not yelling.

“I wanted to pretend that everything was alright because I didn’t want you to worry!” Joshua insisted. “I…I didn’t want to see you having to go through having to take care of me again. I thought…” He dropped his gaze to his lap as he spoke. Having no idea where they were going with the argument, having no idea what the wall between them was.

Kaidan chuckled derisively, which caused Joshua to look up again. “I was trying to avoid you so you would sort through on your own until you came to me and said you needed me here, because I was afraid that I couldn’t do anything because _you_ thought I couldn’t do anything.”

“I…I was afraid that you’d got tired of me, because I’m useless and all I do is sit at home and wait for you…because I’ll never be better. I thought you loved your job more than me…” Joshua pressed his lips together, watching as Kaidan looked up at him sharply.

“That’s not possible.”

“Then why did you get so upset when I asked you why you were leaving again?” Joshua asked, desperate to get some sort of answer, anything.

“Because at that point I was so frustrated with you not telling me that you needed me around that I didn’t realise that you were telling me that you needed me, and instead I got angry at you because I thought you were being selfish,” Kaidan explained.

Joshua chewed on his bottom lip, looking around the bland white room and wishing he was in their apartment. For some reason it felt like this would go better if he could just touch Kaidan. He sighed, thinking about what Kaidan had said, and what Shaek had said.

“But I was being selfish,” Joshua mumbled, shifting his weight because his hip was hurting.

“It should have been alright for you to be selfish, I’m supposed to be someone you feel safe being selfish with. I don’t know what I was thinking, I regretted it as soon as I stepped through the door but I…I felt like I’d done it then, left like I’d left all those times before.”

“You can leave as many times as you want, I’ll always be here,” Joshua muttered, shaking his head slightly and staring at his feet.

“You weren’t this time,” Kaidan pointed out softly.

“I thought that you weren’t coming back,” Joshua replied, feeling like his stomach was in knots. He slumped over on to his side and stared away from the screen.

There were several moments of silence, in which Joshua just stared at the couch and realised he’d never noticed that it was made of green fabric, or that it was comfortable.

“You look really unwell,” Kaidan muttered.

“Gee thanks Kaidan,” Joshua replied, running a hand down his face. “You have a scar on your chest.”

Kaidan shuffled uncomfortably, tugging his shirt collar up only to have it fall back exactly where it had been.

“I thought you were going to end up dead and I was never going to see you again,” Joshua added suddenly.

“Joshua…”

“I keep having these awful dreams, and I didn’t know where you were because it was ‘classified’ and…” He sniffed, even thinking about the dreams made his eyes wet. He had tried so hard not to think about them during the day. Working tirelessly had been helping, but now it was nearing two in the morning and apparently the dreams weren’t going to wait for him to fall asleep. “I’m sorry I accused you of trying to leave me…”

He just wanted the argument to be over.

“To be fair, I kind of was,” Kaidan told him, one side of his lips tugging into an ironic smile.

Joshua glanced at the screen. He tried again, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you when the dreams got worse, and I started having flashbacks again.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t say something when I noticed there was something wrong,” Kaidan replied.

Joshua pressed his face into the couch and groaned. “What’s wrong with us?” he asked, staring desperately into the eyes of the man he loved more than anything, whose distance from him was about the same as the distance that had been between them for more than a year. “I thought we’d fixed all of this.”

“I somehow tricked myself into thinking that it would never get that bad again, so we could just live without any fumbles. I forgot how much you relied on me and got way too enthusiastic about my job,” Kaidan told him.

“I tricked myself into thinking that I was cured forever, and when it started getting bad again I didn’t want to…I didn’t want to make you go through having me rely on you all over again.”

“I want you to rely on me Joshua,” Kaidan replied.

“I didn’t _want_ to be bad again,” Joshua added, swallowing around the lump in his throat. “I wanted to be better, for you, and to be able to be who I was before I got so fucked up. I didn’t want to _have_ to rely on you.”

Kaidan shook his head, and Joshua watched as he took a deep breath and then sighed just as deeply. His head was hurting, Joshua realised, his brows creased heavily in the centre.

“How are we going to fix this?” Kaidan asked him softly. “We can talk about how we did this and that forever, but it won’t fix the problem we’re having now.”

Joshua’s lip trembled. Kaidan was right. They weren’t going to fix anything trying justify their past actions, they had to figure out where they were going now. “I want to see you,” Joshua told him. “I miss you so much.”

“So I fly to the Citadel, and then what? What do you want?” Kaidan looked over his face through the screen, clearly trying his all his might to sort this out. At least they were trying now.

“What do you want?” Joshua asked, turning the question back on him. He’d already said what he wanted, and that was it. He just wanted Kaidan to be around him, instead of giving all of his time to other people.

“I want you to tell me when you need things, and to trust me with your problems. I don’t want you to think about things like how you’re going to upset me or disappoint me, I just want you to _tell_ me,” Kaidan replied. He looked just as upset and exhausted as Joshua felt.

“Shaek is coming back to Vancouver because he wants to start meeting with me again. And Liara has been sending me sleeping and mood medications,” Joshua told him, hoping he’d be happy with that.

Kaidan nodded, tilting his head slightly in thought, staring off into the space in front of him that Joshua knew was their simulated fireplace. “And what do you need from me? You have all of those things that could help you feel better, but what about me?”

Joshua thought about it, really thought about it. What he wanted, more than anything, was to ask Kaidan to give up going out on Spectre missions. He could stay at home working for the Alliance and he wouldn’t have to leave Joshua at home waiting every time to know whether Kaidan was coming back or not. Wondering if the Council would even grant him that courtesy. He didn’t want to feel like he was second to Kaidan’s job, as stupid as that sounded.

He pressed his lips together, not wanting to give voice to his selfishness. Kaidan _loved_ being a Spectre, was better at the job than he’d ever been. Kaidan was good at following the missions and he was good at following the rules. Kaidan excelled at his work with the Spectres and asking him to stop would be like…Kaidan taking all of his models away and telling him he couldn’t build anymore.

He shook his head minutely, not even really realising he’d done it. But the small movement made Kaidan sigh again, and Joshua looked up to see his eyes had the shine of tears to them.

“Joshua you _have_ to trust me. I know I screwed up by pulling this, but I love you, and I need to know how I can make you happy. Just tell me what would make you happy, and I’ll do anything.” Kaidan sounded desperate, Joshua’s heart was squeezing painfully at the sight of the tears in his eyes.

“You shouldn’t _have_ to do anything. We should both make sacrifices for each other. Hell it would be better if there were no sacrifices at all! If I’m lonely, I should buy a puppy or something. If I’m going crazy again I should call up Shaek on my own. You shouldn’t have to suffer just because I’m suffering.”

“You’re not crazy,” Kaidan told him sternly. Joshua wondered when people would get bored of correcting him on that fact. “Suffering is just something that happens Joshua, and I should be able to suffer with you, help you carry the burden.”

“I just want to protect you,” Joshua muttered.

“I know.” Kaidan watched him for a moment. “You’re lonely.”

“It was fine when you were going for a week, and then coming back for a while, but it started being you going away for a week, being back for a few days and then leaving again. Then it wasn’t a week anymore, it was two weeks, then it wasn’t two weeks anymore, it was a month.” Joshua shook his head. “I just sit in the apartment rotting like…some love sick housewife waiting for nothing. What, two days with you? I know it’s because you’re good at your job…I know that. They want you for everything.”

“They.”

“The Council.” Shit. Kaidan had got that answer out of him really easily for someone who had been apparently afraid of the ‘consequences’ of an ended conversation. Then again, he’d left this conversation more open than others, even he could recognise that.

Kaidan got a funny look on his face, and Joshua frowned at him. After a moment he recovered. “Do you want me to come to the Citadel?”

“Yes.” Joshua nodded. “I want to be able to see you…and touch you and…anything.”

Kaidan tapped something into his omnitool and then turned back to him. “I can be there by noon your time if I leave now.”

“You don’t have to rush…”

“Joshua it’s your birthday. I didn’t plan to spend it yelling back and forth and then sitting millions of kilometres apart.”

Joshua sighed. “I guess not.”

“Do you want me there?” Kaidan asked him, sounding a bit annoyed. Joshua nodded miserably, and Kaidan’s posture and expression softened a bit. “Then I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

“Okay.”

“Get some sleep Joshua.”

“You too.”

“I love you,” Kaidan told him softly, and Joshua looked up to see Kaidan looking at him intently, wanting something from him.

“I love you too. I miss you.”

“I miss you too,” Kaidan replied. “Good night Joshua.”

Joshua pressed his lips together. “Kaidan?” Kaidan tilted his head to show he was listening. “I’m sorry for this mess.”

“Me too Joshua. Really I am.” Kaidan’s lips tugged down at one side. Joshua still wasn’t sure how they were supposed to fix all of this, but meeting face to face was probably the first step.

“Good night Kaidan,” he muttered softly, pressing his face into the couch and waiting until the glow from his omnitool faded away after Kaidan had cut the communication. After a few more minutes, his brain feeling like it was fighting an uphill battle to stay awake and trying to sort through the conversation, he went to take his sleeping meds and then went to bed.

He didn’t even have enough energy left to anticipate the next day, or realise that he was seeing Kaidan for the first time in over 3 months.


End file.
